California Trying for Personhood Amendment? Really?

Is California really trying to be the next state to give fertilized eggs the same rights as fully born humans? Apparently so. According to the American Independent, a move to add personhood to the state’s Human Rights Amendment, calling it the “final chapter of the Civil Rights movement.”

On Wednesday, the Union City, Calif.-based anti-abortion-rights group California Civil Rights Foundation (CCRF) announced it is submitting language to state Attorney General Kamala Harris for the “California Human Rights Amendment,” marking the latest push for a “personhood” amendment in the U.S.

The amendment is part of an ongoing campaign to amend California’s constitution to grant equal civil rights to fetuses, effectively criminalizing abortion. Due the language, the amendment would explicitly ban abortions even in the case of rape, incest or fetal anomaly.

The language submitted to the attorney general reads:

The California Human Rights Amendment recognizes the inherent human rights, dignity and worth of all human beings from the beginning of their biological development as human organisms – regardless of the means by which they were procreated, method of reproduction, age, race, sex, gender, physical well-being, function, or condition of physical or mental dependency and/or disability.

The movement’s leader says he was inspired by the premature birth of his own child. Because a 6 month gestation preemie and an fertilized egg prior to implantation are exactly the same thing.

In one way to look at this, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal – as long as this designation did not mandate that a woman could be forced to act as a human life support system.

If a mass of cells starts to grow, and is then removed from the host, it could be moved to a secondary host for further growth and development, until it matured enough to be taken off life support.

The caveat in all of that of course, is that there would be no forced continuation of pregnancy for the original host woman.

Until technology is developed to act as a capable intermediary host, though, I would expect that this type of system will be unrealistic. As it is now, technology is used, as appropriate, to keep injured or incapacitated people alive for short periods of time. Insurance costs, likelihood of recovery and the effectiveness of the artificial life support are all considered when the person with medical power of attorney make the decision to pull the plug or not.

Human women are not artifical life support systems, and should not be treated/enslaved as such. (Wouldn’t that be scary if we were?) We do though, reserve the power to decide about pulling the plug, when the life support system is ourselves.